Internet, this blog has now been around for eight long years of millions of words and almost daily update, and to mark this occasion, I am out of words.
In 2005, here’s what I said about the occasion of its first anniversary:
It’s all recorded, it’s all archived, it’s all documented. It can be played, over and over again. It’s me, it’s mine, but the truth is, once I press “Publish”, those little pieces of myself that formed intelligible sentences are now on the journey of forever- forever attributed to me, forever belong to the World Wide Web.
How long I’m going to do it for, how long will it continue to serve as a void deficient of functional limits and realistic boundaries, I do not know.
At the moment though, this is my canvas- devoid of reality, devoid of rules, and devoid of people who insist on making the walls purple.
And I do it because I love it.
In 2006, AndFarAway turned two:
…so it’s been two years since my first post.
I started (typically) by uploading an image that I had saved years ago and which I thought was cute (might I add to that that at that point, Blogger still didn’t have the image upload feature and I had to figure out how to link images using html).
For And Far Away, there were no hellos, there were no introductions, there were no “this is my first post”-style first posts. There was a headfirst dive into the world of blogging. Splash, splash.
In 2007, I had just graduated from the University of Jordan, and to celebrate AndFarAway’s third anniversary, I gave you a recap on the blogging scene in the Arab world:
Somehow, Eman found my blog. She commented on a photo of Amman, citing that she was really to see some photographs of Amman as she really misses it. I felt like I did someone good, and so I blogged some more. Then Isam added me to Jordan Planet, and I discovered the community-feel of blogging. Then Haitham introduced me to Firefox and gave me many blogging tips, which made it all so much easier. Then Natasha organized the first Jordanian blogger meet-up, which took blogging offline. Then blogging came popular, and Jordan Planet became bigger. Then I became a part of Toot, the first Arab blog aggregator. Then blogging became too popular, and Jordan Planet shut down. Then Khaled started Jordan Blogs, and then Mazen bought Jordan Blogs. Now we’re all wondering what the heck is Jordan Pulse, and it keeps going on and on; a never ending cycle of fast-pace change on the blogosphere.
The blogging scene is now dead. No, not just dead… it died years ago. It has already rotted out of existence.
Last year, I was quite emotional in September, and I think that was reflected in the 7th-year anniversary post:
Through friendships. Through loves found. Through health. Through growth. Through first jobs. Through joy. Through things that change the world. Through deaths. Through college. Through self discoveries. Through lots of coffee. Through career changes. Through depression. Through fresh starts. Through sickness. Through obsessions. Through loves lost. Through addictions. Through revolutions. Through good conversations. Through boredom. Through technological milestones. Through pain. Through Amman.
It’s been a while, somehow. Yet, it seems like yesterday that I celebrated its first birthday.
But it wasn’t yesterday.
It was seven long years ago.
It was a different lifetime.
A different me.
A different you.
A different world.
Indeed. A different everything.
Internet, thank you for reading.
